Thunderbirds are go!

....or at least that's what was supposed to happen. John Spencer, my old driver and utility operator from my previous employer had kindly taken the day off to drive us up to Heathrow. He also bought my car from us too. He got us to Heathrow at around 10:00am in plenty of time for the 13:55 flight to Frankfurt to then transfer at 17:55 to Seoul city. . We found the board had a delay on the first leg of 1 hour, departing at 2:55pm. A quick mental calculation allowing for time difference, wind direction and general rotational skew of the earth reckoned on only around 20 minutes for transfer at Frankfurt. Quite frankly, I didn't think even Lewis Hamilton in a F1 car would do it in time. We sought some guidance from the Lufthansa executive lounge, and the girl on reception must have been a few air miles short of a round trip. She told us we would have 85 minutes to transfer. Wrong! We then heard a tannoy call for all passengers for the Seoul and Tehran connections from Frankfurt to contact the gate. We headed along, to be confronted with a typical “Johnny-no-stars” who directed us to the check-in desk to get re-booked. He didn't have a clue what was going on. At the check-in, they also were about as clueless as clueless can be. After some checking, they rebooked us on a later direct flight through Asiana airlines (never even heard of them!) This was to depart at 21:00, We had 7 hours to kill. No compensation, other than the rebooking on another airline, and a paltry fifteen quid to feed us and refresh the pallet. We wandered about for a bit, then headed to Weatherspoons for some pub grub. Pie was nice, but rubber veggies nuked in the microwave. We went to check-in around 5:00pm, and found a very amenable check-in birdie, who gave us a 3 seat configuration on the side with no-one in the middle. Spread-ability!
Asiana airlines are a pretty fit bunch – plane on time, nice shiny new Boeing B777 with 3-3-3 seat configuration. Crew attentive and smart looking. I tried to be smart too, and greeted them with “Hello, how are you” in Korean. I could have been asking how was the dog cooked tonight for all I knew. The stewardess replied in native tongue, which I had no chance of interpreting, but was most likely telling me that I was a stupid foreigner, and get my backside sat down pronto!
We settled into our seats with lovely space in-between, and quite generous legroom too, when a bloke turns up and plonks himself down between us – She lied! Fair enough, the bloke was very apologetic, and a fellow blighter. But still, personal space is just that, isn't it? After doors closed, the bloke makes a noise to the stewardess, and asks to move, as there are plentiful seats. One elderly English couple even got bumped up to the comfy chairs. (Parents - take note when looking to come over on holidays – look confused and bedraggled when entering plane and attempt to turn left. They might take pity on you and save you a bundle).
Food was an experience, with our very first taste of authentic Korean cuisine (OK, it's airplane food, but nonetheless, a Korean take on it) We had something called Bi-Bim-Bab, which is essentially a boiled rice, turfed into a bowl with hot mixed veg in it, and you then have the option to add spicy hot chilli paste and sesame seed oil. Give it a stir, and enjoy. It reminded me very much of Nasi Goreng, a dish we relished in Indonesia, but came with a fried egg on top. There was accompanying side dishes of a thin soup, and the inevitable Kimchi, a spicy pickled veg dish with a hint of chilli. This is the norm as a side dish to most all Korean main dishes. There was also some very cold noodles, which I couldn't work out if this was to be eaten separately or thrown in with then main dish. I tried to eat them, but cold shoelaces at 35,000 foot didn't really appeal, even with the sachet of what I found out later to be Wasabi paste (a cross between VERY strong horseradish sauce and burny bum chilli paste) This was left to the side, but hidden under the napkin, as I didn't want to appear ungrateful.
Entertainment was via a seat back LCD, with several cinema blockbusters. Each one with either English with Korean subtitles, or Korean spoken language. The Korean version was amusing if you knew what the line was. We may be learning some of the language this way.
Just before we left Heathrow, I sent out an email to my future employer letting them know the change of arrival times. I saw we had a mail from the HR guy, and he advises us we will be in a hotel this weekend, and be prepared to move our apartment on Monday. “You will need to go buy a bed this weekend, and perhaps they can deliver on Monday” he says. Considering the apartment is unfurnished, I think this might be a tad under achieving. We have our work cut out for us this weekend.
We are in the same high-end apartment building as the Operations Director, and as we have seen the pictures of his home, we should be quite pleased with the space and finish. We had checked out the videos on You Tube of several ESL (English Second Language) teachers who get apartments supplied and paid for by their employers, and these are quite scary – one room, and shower cum toilet off to the side. Try Korean Apartment as a search criteria and you'll get the gist of what I mean! One chap does a pirouette with his camera, and you've seen the lot!